Month: August 2017

The key findings of Australia’s 2016 National Drug Strategy Household Survey were released earlier this year, and they made for sobering reading. The NDSHS reported that over 15% of Australians had used illicit drugs in the previous year, including such drugs as cannabis, ice and heroin. Shocking, right?

Wrong. Of course.

We’re being silly in a way that the NDSHS reporting was not. Yes, the NDSHS reported that 15% had used illicit drugs at least once (including the possibility of exactly once) in the previous year, but NDSHS also emphasised the composition of that 15%. By far the most commonly used drug was cannabis, at about 10% of the population. Ice use was around 1%, and heroin didn’t register in the summary.

Illicit drug use is a serious problem, and a problem exacerbated by idiotic drug laws. Nothing can be learned, however, and nothing can be solved if one focuses upon a meaningless 15% multicategory. Whatever the specific threats or the reasonableness of concerns over the broad use of cannabis, such concerns pale in comparison to the problems of ice and heroin. The NDSHS makes no such categorical mistake. Unfortunately, there are plenty of clowns who do.

Last week, the Federal Ministers for Social Services and Human Services announced the location of a drug testing trial for job seekers who receive federal benefits. The ironically named Christian Porter and the perfectly named Alan Tudge announced that receipients would be tested “for illicit substances including ice (methamphetamine), ecstasy (MDMA) and marijuana (THC) … People who test positive to drug tests will continue to receive their welfare payment but 80 per cent of their payment will only be accessible through Income Management.” The plan is deliberately nasty and monumentally stupid, and it has been widely reported as such. For all the critical reporting, however, we could find no instance of the media noting the categorical lunacy of effectively equating the use of ice and ecstasy and THC.

Still, one should be fair to Porter and Tudge. They are undeniably dickheads, but Porter and Tudge are hardly exceptional. They are members of a very large group of thuggish, victim-blaming politicians, which includes Malcolm Turnbull, and Peter Dutton, and Adolf Hitler.

This year Australia celebrates ten years of NAPLAN testing, and Australians can ponder the results. Numerous media outlets have reported “a 2.55% increase in numeracy” over the ten years. This is accompanied by a 400% increase in the unintended irony of Australian education journalism.

What is the origin of that 2.55% and precisely what does it mean to have “an increase in numeracy” by that amount? Yes, yes, it clearly means “bugger all”, but bugger all of what? It is a safe bet that no one reporting the percentage has a clue, and it is not easy to determine.

The media appear to have taken the percentage from a media release from Simon Birmingham, the Federal Education and Training Minister. (Birmingham, it should be noted, is one of the better ministers in the loathsome Liberal government; he is merely hopeless rather than malevolent.) Attempting to decipher that 2.55%, it seems to refer to the “% average change in NAPLAN mean scale score [from 2008 to 2017], average for domains across year levels”. Whatever that means.

ACARA, the administrators of NAPLAN, issued their own media release on the 2017 NAPLAN results. This release does not quote any percentages but indicates that the “2107 summary information” can be found at the the NAPLAN reports page. Two weeks after ACARA’s media release, no such information is contained on or linked on that page, nor on the page titled NAPLAN 2017 summary results. Both pages link to a glossary, to explain “mean scale score”, which in turn explains nothing. The 2016 NAPLAN National Report contains the expression 207 times, without once even pretending to explain what it means. The 609-page Technical Report from 2015 (the latest available on ACARA’s website) appears to contain the explanation, though the precise expression is never used and nothing remotely resembling a user-friendly summary is included.

To put it very briefly, each student’s submitted test is given a “scaled score”. One purpose of this is to be able to compare tests and test scores from different years. The statistical process is massively complicated and in particular it includes a weighting for the “difficulty” of each test question. There is plenty that could be queried here, particularly given ACARA’s peculiar habit of including test questions that are so difficult they can’t be answered. But, for now, we’ll accept those scaled scores as a thing. Then, for example, the national average for 2008 Year 3 numeracy scaled scores was 396.9. This increased to 402.0 in 2016, amounting to a percentage increase of 1.29%. The average percentage increases from 2008 to 2017 can then be further averaged over the four year levels, and (we think) this results in that magical 2.55%.

It is anybody’s guess whether that “2.55% increase in numeracy” corresponds to anything real, but the reporting of the figure is simply hilarious. Numeracy, to the very little extent it means anything, refers to the ability to apply mathematics effectively in the real world. To then report on numeracy in such a manner, with a who-the hell-cares free-floating percentage is beyond ironic; it’s perfect.

But of course the stenographic reportage is just a side issue. The main point is that there is no evidence that ten years of NAPLAN testing, and ten years of shoving numeracy down teachers’ and students’ throats, has made one iota of difference.

Australia’s Prime Minister tends to be pretty pleased with himself, and plenty of other people seem to think of Malcolm Turnbull as the smartest guy in the room. Perhaps he sometimes he is.* Malcolm didn’t appear so smart, however, when presenting Australia’s proposal to require the tech giants to decrypt their customers’ encrypted messages. When ZDnet reporter Asha McLean suggested that “the laws of mathematics [might] trump the laws of Australia”, Malcolm was unfazed:

The laws of Australia prevail in Australia, I can assure you of that. The laws of mathematics are very commendable but the only law that applies in Australia is the law of Australia.

And yes, the Government’s plan (for want of a better word) is as clueless as Malcolm makes it sound.